Waiting for Perfect (11 page)

NICK

Three days.
 
She hasn’t even looked in my direction
in three days.
 
I must have really
pissed her off at lunch on Tuesday.
 
I’ve tried to do better.
 
Just this morning I heard some douche talking about her near my locker,
and I didn’t hit him.
 
That’s
progress, right?

I’ve been eating
lunch with Raj and Dylan in the music room to avoid people.
 
I figure if I’m not around anyone, then
I won’t hear anything about Kendra, and maybe I won’t be tempted to punch
anybody.

Raj is practicing
his cello with his eyes closed – some achingly melancholy tune that makes
me want to tear my hair out and sob.
 
It fits my mood, so I endure it, letting it crawl into the depths of my
soul and fester.

Dylan’s voice
suddenly tears through the music, gutting me.
 
“Are you okay?”

I realize my eyes
are unfocused, and I’m blankly staring at the wall.
 
I’m sure I look like a psycho.
 
“Uh, yeah.
 
Yeah, totally.”
 
Jeez, I’m a
terrible liar.

Raj cuts his
practice and chimes in.
 
“You need
to get over this girl, Nick.”

I spin around on my
orchestra stool to face him.
 
“What
are you talking about?”
 
I haven’t
told them anything about Kendra.
 
I
wonder what they’ve heard and how many of the rumors they believe.

“Kendra Voss,”
Dylan answers.
 
“You’re consumed by
her.”
 
He walks over to me and
grabs my sketchpad.
 
I try to pull
it out of his hands, but he rips it from my grasp.
 
Backing away swiftly so I can’t catch him, he opens it and
holds it in the air, flipping the pages quickly.
 
“Every page, Nick.
 
She’s the only thing you draw anymore.”

I follow him around
the room trying to snatch the sketchpad from him.
 
He maneuvers over instruments and music stands and
stools.
 
All the while, I follow
like an annoying little brother after a stolen toy truck.
 
“Dude!
 
Knock it off!”

He comes to a stop
next to Raj, still flipping the pages of the pad, revealing every portrait of
Kendra I’ve sketched over the last two weeks.
 
He shakes his head slowly, like he feels sorry for me.
 
He probably does.
 
I’m pathetic.

“What is your
obsession with this girl?” Raj asks.
 
“It’s like seventh grade all over again.”

I grab my notebook
away from Dylan and stuff it in my backpack.
 
“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Dylan comes over
and slaps me on my back.
 
“We
do.
 
You’ve been out of it for two
weeks.
 
We’re sick of it.
 
You haven’t even come with us to see
the new Marvel movie.
 
What is your
deal?”
 
He actually sounds hurt,
and I realize for the first time how much I’ve been neglecting these guys.

I take a seat on
the ground and fold my legs Indian-style.
 
My hair dips into my eyes, and I stare at the tattoo on my forearm.
 
I think about telling them everything –
about how I found Ryan on top of her at Jeff’s party and about how I beat him
to a bloody pulp because of it – but decide against it.
 
They know about my second fight with
Ryan, but I never told them why we got into it.
 
I just blamed it on a male testosterone thing.

I’ve done enough to
hurt Kendra already.
 
I don’t need
more people knowing what happened to her.
 
I decide to lie instead.
 
“I’ve just been busy.
 
You
know, with my mom and Sebastian.”
 
I glance over to see if they’re buying it.

They’re not.
 
Raj opens his mouth, his teeth bright
white against his dark skin.
 
He says
softly, “I know what people are saying about her.”

The whole school is
saying things about her.
 
She
doesn’t deserve any of it.
 
I stay
quiet, so he continues.
 

“I don’t think it’s
true, just so you know.”

“Well, it’s not
true,” I snap back.
 
“None of it.”

Raj holds his hands
out in surrender.
 
“Okay,
dude.
 
Calm down.”
 
He comes closer to me and sits on the
ground too.
 
I could tell he wants
to say something.
 
Finally, he
spits it out.
 
“It’s just…”

I stare at him,
waiting for it.
 
Adrenaline pumps
through me, and I know if he says what I think he’s going to say, I’m going to
deck him.
 
“It’s just
what
, Raj?” I say carefully.

He looks down at
the dirty Berber carpet.
 
“Well,
what if they
did
hook up?
 
It’s not like it would be that
crazy.
 
Why would she accuse him of
raping her?”

Shit.
 
That’s it.
 
Reason tells me I can’t pummel my best friend, so I grab my
backpack and stand up promptly, storm out of the music room, and slam the door
on the way out.
 
Good riddance,
asshats.

After school, the
last person I want to see is Sebastian.
 
He’s always grinning ear to ear, and if I see that sweet, charming
dimple of his right now, I’m going to lose it.
 
I text him that I have a ride home and not to wait for
me.
 
He texts me back a single ‘K’.

I need to blow off
some steam anyway, so I decide to hoof it back to our house.
 
It’s about five miles, and I know it’s
going to take me over an hour – and with this stupid September heat, I’ll
probably incinerate into a pile of ash before I’m halfway there, but I don’t
care.
 
I’ll take my chances.

What the hell is
wrong with me?
 
I can’t believe I
let myself get attached to Kendra Voss again.
 
She killed me in junior high.
 
She made me feel completely invisible.
 
She was the prettiest girl in school,
and she laughed at me like I was nothing.
 
I swore I would never have feelings for anyone who treated me that
way.
 
I told myself I deserved
better than Kendra Voss.
 
And here
I am with my stupid sketchpad filled with her stupid portraits because I’m a
stupid, weak loser.

I should just
forget about her – leave her to deal with this on her own.
 
She’s got Lexi and Candace, even
Megan.
 
She doesn’t need me.
 
Hell, she told me as much at the
portables a few days ago.
 
She wouldn’t
even look at me.
 
She was probably
afraid she’d start laughing at me if she looked at my pathetic face.

“Ugh!” I shout into
the air.
 
My voice gets lost in the
traffic whizzing by me.

About a half hour
from school, I hear a car slowing to a stop behind me.
 

“Nick?” a girl’s
voice calls.

I whip my head
around and see a white Jetta pulling up along the curb.
 
I squint against the glare in the
windshield to view the driver.
 
She
pulls the car up a few more feet and leans her head down so I can see her
through the passenger window.

“Candace?”

“Yeah, hi.
 
You need a ride?”

What the hell is
this?
 
“Uh, sure.
 
Thanks.”
 
I open the door to the car, and it smells like some mix of
cherry Chapstick and coconut oil.
 
There are about twenty empty water bottles on the floor, and I have to
shuffle them out of the way just to sit down.
 
I throw my backpack in the back seat and notice a gaping
hole in the cloth.
 
It looks like someone
went at it with a machete.

From her rearview
mirror hangs a cardboard cutout pine tree and a long silver chain with a small,
framed picture of a woman hugging a child.
 
Angry girl music is coming from the speakers.

“Where to?” she
asks as she pulls back out into traffic, barely missing another vehicle in the
process.
 
The other car honks, and
she flips him the bird out her window.
 
I don’t know whether just to tell her to let me out here or chance my
life in her hands for the next five minutes.

My voice comes out
nervously.
 
“Uh, my house,
please.
 
It’s by the golf
course.”
 
I reach for the handle
that is so conveniently located above the door.
 
Candace makes a funny noise when she sees me holding onto it
for dear life.
 
I wish she would
just watch the road and not look at me at all.

“Relax, Nick.
 
I’ve had my license for over a
year.
 
No crashes yet!” She sounds
proud and slightly surprised at the same time, which does nothing to calm my
nerves.
 
“So did Sebastian ditch
you today?
 
Doesn’t he usually
drive you home?”

I wonder how she
even knows that.
 
“Yeah.
 
I mean, yeah he usually drives me home,
but no, he didn’t ditch me.
 
I just
felt like walking.”

She gives me a
once-over with wary eyes.
 
“Right,
because jeans and a sweatshirt is always what I feel like walking in when it’s
ninety degrees outside.”
 
She’s
laying on the sarcasm pretty thick, but I don’t get offended.

I realize I’m a
sweaty mess.
 
That’s probably why
she decided to pull over in the first place.
 
She thought I was going into heat stroke or something.
 
I sweep my long bangs off my face.

“So how are the
hands?”
 
She eyes them as I mess
with my hair.

I look them over in
front of me, confused.

“From all the
fighting?
 
You have bruises or
anything?”
 
She makes the right
turn fast, and I nearly end up on top of her.
 
I pull myself together quickly.

“No.
 
They’re fine.
 
And it was just two fights.
 
I’m sure you’d agree Ryan deserved it.”

She smiles, looking
over at me while driving with her knee and tying her hair back into a rubber
band.
 
God help us.

“Yeah, I know.
 
He sure as hell did.”
 
She turns up the volume to the music.
 
“I love this song!” she exclaims.
 
She bobs her head and sings out
loud.
 
After a minute, she says,
“I’m glad you kicked his ass, Nick.”

“Yeah, me too,” I
yell over the music.
 
“Make your
next left.”

I direct her to my
house, and when we pull up, Candace turns down the volume.
 
“Well, I guess this is it.”
 
She says it like she’ll never see me
again.

I sit still for a
moment and stare at the red Mustang in the driveway.

“Nick?
 
Is something wrong?”

“No.
 
It’s just Sebastian.
 
He’s driving me crazy lately.”

She nods like she
understands.
 
“Oh.”
 
Then she gets a bright smile and says,
“You can come with me.
 
I’m going
for frozen yogurt.”

Frozen yogurt with
Candace Schratter.
 
Weird, but
okay.
 
“Really?”

“Yeah, sure,” she
says, already putting the car into Drive and pulling out into the street.
 
She completely disregards the
25-mile-per-hour neighborhood speed limit.
 
It makes me glad there are no small kids on this street.
 
She’d hit them for sure.

When we get to the
yogurt shop, Candace waves to the girl behind the counter.
 
She then proceeds to fill her bowl with
a variety of flavors from strawberry to mint chocolate chip and covers it in
toppings, so none of the yogurt is even visible. I fill my bowl halfway with
chocolate yogurt and put a few gummy worms on top.